


Walkthrough

by midnightghostwriter



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2018-12-30 13:43:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12109968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightghostwriter/pseuds/midnightghostwriter
Summary: Jooheon has never been good with spooky things, and his friends aren't always so nice about it. Luckily, he gets a little inside help.





	Walkthrough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Just_Codes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Codes/gifts).



Halloween has always had multiple meanings, meanings which sometimes change depending on who you talk to. For some, it’s the crisp colors of autumn’s full arrival, and the chill breeze that stirs them. For others, it’s the fact that suddenly everyone remembers pumpkin spice is a thing, and an incessant amount of pumpkin flavored items make their reappearance on grocery store shelves and coffee menus. And even more still consider it the best excuse to dress up in ridiculous apparel and appeal to strangers for free candy they hope isn’t poisoned.

Lee Jooheon, however, did not fall into a single one of these categories.

To him, Halloween might as well be synonymous with the phrase “Hell on Earth.” Sure, he liked a good party, and the costumes weren’t always too bad. But for all the bravado he put on and charisma he exuded, he was, at heart, something of a wimp. And that meant that all the ghosts, ghouls, and other creeps of the holiday that ran rampant were just a bit too much for him.

He was lucky, he supposed, that the holiday wasn’t quite as big a deal in Korea as it was in other places. Sure some people dressed up, some handed out free candy, etc. But it wasn’t even close to the spectacle it was in the States (or so he was told by Jackson, who was told by Mark, and who knew how reliable that grapevine really was anyway). It gave him a weird semblance of peace to know he wouldn’t have to be looking around every single corner and behind him every five seconds, on the lookout for spooks and scares.

Unfortunately, his friends had other ideas. When it came time for Halloween, they threw themselves into it with reckless abandon. Party enthusiasts Hoseok and Hyungwon went all out with their annual joint Halloween party and forced everyone to wear a costume or they’d provide one – which everyone learned after the first year, when Minhyuk forgot his, was not something you wanted. Kihyun was always the one to instigate a rather absurd round of pumpkin carving, which became carefully supervised after Hyunwoo almost cut through the entire gourd and into Kihyun’s mother’s kitchen table. This of course left Hyunwoo and Minhyuk, the group thrill seekers, who made it their personal mission to find the scariest purportedly haunted attraction, and drag everyone to it.

Which brought them to the present. Despite the October chill, they stood outside what was supposedly this year’s scariest haunted house. Tucked within the walls of an abandoned, crumbling school building were rooms of horror beyond their wildest imaginings (or so several adverts and the banner at the entrance had promised). Hyunwoo and Minhyuk led the pack, the other four trailing behind. Jooheon, unsurprisingly, brought up the rear, feet dragging with all the reluctance he could physically convey. When they reached the entrance, he felt something well up in his throat, and freeze his feet in place. God, he did  _ not  _ want to do this  _ at  _ **_all_ ** .

“Heonie, are you okay?” He glanced up from the ground he’d been willing to swallow him up, to find Minhyuk staring at him, concern etched in the lines of his frown. They’d all stopped, waiting for him to catch up. Burying his fists further in the pockets of his hoodie, Jooheon sighed.

“Yeah I’m fine,” he grunted. The group began moving again, but Minhyuk allowed himself to drift a bit, until he could hook his arm around Jooheon’s, and pat him on the shoulder.

“Don’t be nervous! It’s just gonna be a bunch of kids in campy costumes trying to spook us. It’ll be fun!” Easy for him to say, Jooheon thought bitterly. The truth was Minhyuk was just as easily scared as he was, but he dealt with it better, laughing at himself and the ridiculous things that had spooked him in the first place. Of course he could find the bright side to the torture they were about to endure. But he knew Minhyuk was looking for some kind of affirmation, so he forced a smile and nodded.

It wasn’t convincing.

“I’ll try,” he managed after a moment and Minhyuk seemed to accept this, giving him another hearty slap on the back before jogging ahead, yelling at Hyunwoo not to see any of the good stuff without him.

Yeah, this was going to suck.

* * *

 

“Ticket please!” An overly-cheerful witch chirped, holding her hand out. Changkyun handed her the slip the ticket kiosk had given him, ignoring her sunny “Thanks for the support!” as he moved past her. She was massively out of character anyway. He could almost hear one of his friends cracking a joke about a wicked witch being a charity volunteer.

Ah right, his friends. The ones who had all managed to flake out on him at the last second, leaving him all alone to attend this undoubtedly stupid haunted house all by himself. Normally, he was all over an event like this one - why not enjoy some silly scares for a good cause? But that was because he had someone to laugh or yell with as they made their way through the maze of actors and small rooms. It was no fun to go through by himself. And yet here he was, about to do exactly that.

In all honesty, Changkyun wasn’t really a fan of the Halloween season. The decorations and other stuff that came out of it were kind of fun, but for the most part he didn’t get the hype. It all just seemed like an excuse for kids to eat extra candy and adults to dress up and play pretend again. But perhaps that was just because the horrors and other awful things didn’t faze him the same way they did other people.

The “haunted school” turned out to be like almost every other such attraction he’d been to. Its first room had flickering lights and overturned desks. Torn up paper, scratch marks, warnings written in a liquid that was meant to look like blood but was probably paint. All the right things to set up some true school-based horror ambiance. He was willing to bet the story would be someone in the school had died and was getting revenge on the others.

On the way to the second room, a single locker, its door swinging wide beneath a flickering fluorescent light. The contents of the locker were as trashed as the previous room, and mixed with bits of trash. Blood dripped down the metal from what was pinned above it. Changkyun squinted at it again - a mock up of a dead animal, a thick nail in its stomach holding a bloodstained note with profanities written on it. Shaking his head, he moved on down the hallway.

Second on the list of scenarios was another classroom, this time what appeared to be a science lab. Inside, a light flashed on and off, spotlighting a girl in a disheveled and bloodied school uniform, standing in the corner and glaring from behind lank, greasy locks. At the desks, girls scattered throughout the room screamed in terror as beakers of an acidic substance emptied their contents onto them, seemingly all on their own. He had to give them credit for the pretty excellent makeup work.

A bathroom in the hallway featured caution tape that blocked the entrance, and a cracked mirror with more red paint splashed across it, spelling out a message that promised retribution. When he looked again, it seemed like an image flashed in and out on the mirror, the same grotesque girl from the science room, this time with an eerie grin on her face. Now  _ that  _ was pretty well-executed.

The next few rooms passed in something of a blur, a myriad of different scenes intended to give those walking through the attraction the thrill born of fear and excitement mixed. Mostly he had the feeling of being vaguely impressed, that his neck was starting to hurt from constantly turning to take it all in, and that he was nearing the end of his tolerance for these budget high school indie film displays, punctuated only by the occasional in-your-face scares by the actual actors.

They had to be just over halfway through when they (somewhere along the way Changkyun had been veritably absorbed into a group that had come in just after him) stopped. At the end of the hall, they were left with the options of turning left or right. Before any of them could make a choice, a girl in the school uniform they’d been seeing ran past, screaming, splatters of fake blood highlighted by the strobing lights. Even he was startled by her, and took an unconscious step back. Just in time too it seemed, as a ghostly girl brandishing a knife and also covered in blood, walked past them as well. When she’d passed, Changkyun made to continue on, figuring that turning left after the girls was probably the intended direction.

Just as he stepped into the hallway, he heard a shriek and looked to his right. Standing at the other end was the girl with the knife, twirling it and pointing ominously at him.

“Oh fuck,” he heard one of the people in the group behind him whisper. One step, two, while they all stood frozen in surprise, and then she screamed again, and began charging after them. On instinct, Changkyun bolted, tearing down the hall with the other group shrieking and yelling behind him. Luckily, he was faster, and made it around the next corner before any of them.

Though perhaps he wasn’t so lucky, because his mad dash meant he very nearly tripped over something blocking the path in the semi-dark of the hall. Catching himself on the wall, Changkyun squinted toward the floor. Wait a second…  _ was that a person? _

* * *

 

“Don’t you think it’s a little mean that we just left Heonie behind like that?” Kihyun whispered to Minhyuk. The two boys jumped a bit as they passed another part of the haunted house, but only gave it vaguely interested looks. The boys ahead of them were laughing, pointing things out to each other as they went. They had to be near the end at this point, as the school wasn’t all that large and they’d been walking for what felt like an hour. As the feeling of the end loomed closer, guilt had started to nag at Kihyun until he could no longer keep it to himself. When they’d left the room, Minhyuk shrugged.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. It was every man for himself back there. I’m sure he’ll come running up to us eventually, once he figures out where to go. It’ll be fine.” Kihyun wished he could share the younger boy’s optimism. For some reason, he wasn’t so sure Jooheon was going to make it if they just left him like that. He’d seemed even more terrified than usual.

“I guess,” he supplied instead and Minhyuk grinned.

“Besides, you have to admit, the idea of Jooheon shrieking at everything that moves as he tries to escape is kinda hilarious.” Despite his better judgement, the corners of Kihyun’s mouth twitched just a bit.

“As long as he makes it out, I guess there’s no harm,” he relented. Minhyuk crowed.

“Now you’re getting it! Come on, let’s get out of this boring kiddie ride.”

“You were just shouting at that actor that she didn’t scare you, even as you tried to make a cross sign at her.”

“ _ BORING KIDDIE RIDE! _ ”

* * *

 

Jooheon couldn’t be sure how long he’d been huddled against the wall of the dark hallway, hugging his knees and attempting to block out the cacophony of horrific sounds barraging him. What he did know was that he was alone, he was afraid, and he didn’t know where anything was anymore. Even if he  _ did  _ know how to get out of here, there was a fair amount of certainty about the fact his legs would not be able to support him long enough to escape anyway.

God, why had he agreed to come here? He should’ve known his friends were being weirdly supportive when he clung to them throughout the first parts of the haunted attraction. Other than that, they’d made it through the first half without much incident, and he had thought he might just make it out with his heart intact.

Then they’d gotten here, to the hallway where the murderous ghost girl had chased them down the hall. The others had shouted and laughed as they ran, but in the confusion of seven bodies flying down the dark corridor, and the unadulterated fear coursing through his system, Jooheon had managed to be at the tail end of the lineup. The “ghost” had targeted him, only leaving him be when he was able to turn the corner and collapse onto the floor. By that point, his friends were gone, and it was much too loud to tell if anyone actually responded when he called their names repeatedly.

So now he was alone, trapped in this godforsaken place until either it closed down for the night or someone came to get him. The latter didn’t seem likely, or they would’ve found him by now. Which could only mean that his friends had probably decided it would be funny to leave him by himself. At this point, Jooheon was rather accustomed to them getting in a few laughs at his expense, given his propensity for being afraid of almost anything relatively spooky, so the idea was hardly surprising. That didn’t mean it stung any less though.

He was so trapped in his thoughts he didn’t hear the sounds of another soul hurrying down the hallway, feet pounding the floor in their haste, almost missed the boy that tore around the corner toward him. Almost, except said individual nearly tripped over him, their foot connecting uncomfortably with his side, and a grunt reaching his ears, followed by the sound of someone bracing themselves on the wall. 

For a few moments, he was convinced it was one of the others, then realized that wouldn’t make any sense considering the person had come from the direction of the haunted house’s beginning. With that possibility gone out the window, the thought that maybe it was one of the actors trying to scare him again made its insidious way into his mind, and he did his best to curl up even tighter as if making himself a smaller target could offer some kind of protection. He couldn’t make out any sounds of further movement, however, so when the person did put their hand on his shoulder he had to bite his tongue to avoid letting out a blood-curdling scream that would’ve made the actors jealous. But he definitely flinched strongly enough to make the other person draw their hand back like they’d disturbed an injured animal and weren’t sure if it was about to bite. Honestly, even Jooheon couldn’t say he wouldn’t resort to such base tactics anymore.

“Hey, are you okay?” The low voice and its concern surprised him, giving him enough reason to peek up from the cage his arms had made around his head and discover that it belonged not to one of the costumed harbingers of horror, but a boy around his age who was wearing a surprised but worried expression as he stared down at Jooheon. He was so taken aback by this unexpected arrival, it took him a few seconds before he was able to swallow and respond.

“Y-yeah, I’m just… I just needed a minute.” His stumbling words were met with the utmost skepticism, but the boy didn’t say anything to contradict him. Instead, he knelt down next to him and put a reassuring hand on Jooheon’s arm.

“Do you want me to go the rest of the way with you?” Jooheon regarded him with surprise again and the boy shrugged. “I figure if you’ve been sitting here by yourself you must be scared, and it’ll be hard to get to the exit on your own.” Jooheon considered the offer. What was the worst that could happen? This stranger might ditch him again? If that happened, he supposed he could just text one of the others and demand they come rescue him or something. And anything was better than spending the rest of his life huddled on the floor.

“Sure, thanks…” There was a pause and the boy seemed to understand what Jooheon was looking for.

“Changkyun. My name’s Changkyun.” He stood and held his hand out to Jooheon, helping pull him to his feet.

“Jooheon,” he offered once he’d given his pockets a proper pat down to ensure he hadn’t lost anything. Changkyun gave him a confident smile.

“Alright Jooheon, let’s get you out of here.”

* * *

 

To his pleasant surprise, Changkyun did not in fact abandon Jooheon before they reached the end of the maze. He was patient as he guided the elder through the final rooms, pausing every so often to make sure the latest scare hadn’t rendered Jooheon catatonic once again. Nor did he make fun of the way every sound and sight made him twitch and bite his tongue to keep from screaming bloody murder.

Even so, Jooheon spent the entire rest of their journey so on edge, he almost didn’t realize it was over until Changkyun tapped the tense link of their elbows that led to Jooheon’s death grip on his hand to get his attention, and Jooheon found he was being blinded by street lights and quickly fading twilight rather than strobes and grisly red. The bewilderment on his face must have been quite the sight, as Changkyun was watching him and looking rather amused.

“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Wits slowly returning to him, Jooheon gave a slow nod of acknowledgment.

“I guess not,” he muttered in reply. Before either of them could say more, the sound of Jooheon’s name was echoing across the parking lot they’d wandered into, and when he’d pinpointed the direction, he saw five figures making their way across the darkening landscape towards them.

“Jooheonie!” Minhyuk’s piercing wail was, unsurprisingly, the first to reach his ears as the blonde careened toward him. Before he could stop him, Jooheon was enveloped in a hug that threatened to crush his bones to dust. “There you are! We thought you’d died of fright in there or something!” The words drew Jooheon’s brows together in a frown, and he shoved Minhyuk off him.

“Yah, you were the ones who ditched me back there! If I  _ had  _ died it would’ve been entirely your fault!” Minhyuk did his best to look sheepish but it didn’t look like anyone believed him. Kihyun was the first to offer an apologetic look and accompanying hand on Jooheon’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry Heonie, we really didn’t mean to leave you behind at first. But then some of us,” he cast a glare at Minhyuk who didn’t look the least bit sorry, “insisted we should just leave you in there to find your own way out.” It was then his eyes found the boy standing next to Jooheon, and his head took on that tilt that meant Kihyun was curious about something. “Seems like you found help, though.”

“I found him huddled against a wall after you guys left him behind and offered to get him out,” Changkyun explained with a shrug. It was then Jooheon remembered he was still clutching the other boy’s hand for dear life and quickly dropped it to shove his own in the pockets of his hoodie.

“Thank you for helping him,” Kihyun said, and Changkyun shrugged again.

“He probably would’ve stayed there all night if I hadn’t.” Jooheon frowned again and shoved his shoulder into Changkyun’s.

“Shut up,” he groused but the others just chuckled.

“Well, now that we know everyone’s alive, why don’t we get out of here and just watch some B-list horror movies?” Wonho suggested and there was a round of approval. As the group began to head back toward the convoy of vehicles that had brought them here, Hyunwoo turned around, his attention directed at Changkyun.

“If you aren’t doing anything else, you’re welcome to join us.” Changkyun considered the offer for a moment before nodding.

“Sounds like fun. Besides, Jooheon will probably need someone to hide behind, anyway.”

“HEY!” The boy in question complained, but the others just chuckled and he didn’t offer any other argument. They all knew Changkyun was right. But at least he knew that he’d be safe in a living room with his friends rather than the house of horrors they were leaving behind.


End file.
